Shark of the pharmaceutical market
Vaccination against greedIrina Vlasova, Gazeta, 18.03.2008
In the current situation in the pharmaceutical market, where the margin of wholesalers is steadily decreasing, and pharmacy chains are increasingly putting pressure on the balance of forces in the market, there is room for wholesalers to maneuver only in certain narrow niches of specialized supplies. Such until recently was the niche of biological products. Now a specialized distributor is trying to keep it exclusively for itself – the Megard Group company, which until recently was known in the pharmaceutical market as Microgen-Pharma.
Bioproducts now account for up to 80% of the turnover of Megard Group, turnover in 2007 amounted to 2.5 billion rubles. In three years, according to CEO Sergey Mironov, the volumes should triple. But already today, the company's cold storage warehouses are sufficient to store 20 wagons of medicines of 400 names. This is a stock of 3 million doses of vaccines. The geography of supplies includes countries in Africa, Asia, as well as several CIS countries.
Today, the company operates only with Russian drugs, but it is also negotiating with importers, although the top managers of Megard Group have not named possible partners.
Speaking about government programs, the company's representatives noted that they work only in regional tenders, and stressed that they pay special attention to quality assurance of supplies and storage. Comparing the supply of products by a niche distributor with a "bakery", and the supply by a large versatile wholesaler with a "multi-specialty supermarket", Sergey Mironov said that he prefers a "bakery" because of commitment to guarantees, "freshness of products" and personal acquaintance with the baker.
Such ambitions will require substantial investments. To a direct question from a Gazeta correspondent whether the CEO of Microgen and former Deputy Minister of Health Anton Katlinsky owns a part of the company's package and a share in the authorized fund, Sergey Mironov answered negatively, as well as to the question of whether the company relies on administrative resources to promote its business. According to Mironov, the company is able to find the $100 million that will be required to completely capture the Russian distribution of biological products on its own. However, the head of Megard Group did not deny the proximity with Microgen.
"The niche is difficult because it requires particularly high–quality supplies, compliance with the cold chain, and well-established logistics," commented David Melik-Huseynov, Marketing Research Director at Pharmexpert, on Megard Group's intentions. – However, the benefits are obvious. The production of biological products – vaccines, bacteriophages, serums, live solutions, and insulins from manufacturing companies will grow, since the possibilities of bringing new formulas of traditional medicines to the market are quite exhausted. Today, in the distribution segment, they occupy 4-5% with a growth rate of 10% per year and volumes of $ 400 million."
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21.03.2008